Posted by: Old Grouch in In Passing at 18:27:10 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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COMPETENCE:  Report: NSA doesn’t know the extent of Snowden damage.  ‘‘The National Security Agency (NSA) doesn’t know how much information leaker Edward Snowden was able to obtain because of an underdeveloped capacity to audit its own data, according to a NBC News report released late Tuesday.’’

This is criminal.  Every single thing he did should have left an audit trail, both as a guard against misuse, and for damage assessment in a case just like this.

I didn’t say ‘‘criminal incompetence,’’ because if the need for an audit trail is obvious to such as me, it surely must have been obvious to higher-ups at NSA.  If the systems lack the capacity for this, it’s because somebody doesn’t want the records kept.  That suggests abuse at a systemic level.

Posted by: Old Grouch in In Passing at 18:02:37 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Its called ‘‘evidence-based home visits...’’

According to an Obamacare provision millions of Americans will be targeted.

The Health and Human Services’ website states that your family will be targeted if you fall under the ‘‘high-risk” categories below:

• Families where mom is not yet 21.
• Families where someone is a tobacco user.
• Families where children have low student achievement, developmental delays, or disabilities.^[1]
• Families with individuals who are serving or formerly served in the armed forces, including such families that have members of the armed forces who have had multiple deployments outside the United States.

‘‘...the new statute, by its own definition, has no... limitation.  Intervention may be with any family for any reason.  It may also result in the child or children being required to go to certain schools or tak[e] certain medications and vaccines and even having more limited – or no – interaction with [their] parents.’’

Posted by: Old Grouch in In Passing at 22:09:52 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Ann Coulter:  Yes we should revitalize the Republican Party.  I’ll tell you who to throw out – Any Republicans who support amnesty.  You have a clear list Tea Partiers...

Sean Hannity:   Oh, so is the love affair with Chris Christie over?

Ann Coulter:   Sadly, over amnesty.  And, by the way, that’s when the love affair ended with George Bush.

Posted by: Old Grouch in In Passing at 17:08:01 GMT | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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...A city’s number [one] priority should be to keep the city a place people want to live.  At bottom this means decent public safety [police and fire, mostly...], decent transportation [roads, signals], and decent schools; at a ‘price point’ [total taxation] that the average... taxpaying citizen finds reasonable.  Anything else... is basically fluff.

People living in Seattle can no longer enjoy a brown bag lunch after city bureaucrats banned the term from official use for being racist

A memo sent out from the Office of Civil Rights also banned the word ‘citizen’, claiming it could lead to people feeling excluded...

Posted by: Old Grouch in In Passing at 21:12:19 GMT | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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... while eliminating debit cards would be a drastic move by the banks, you would more likely see the end of things like ‘‘free’’ checking.

The reason for this is ‘‘interchange fees’’.  Or, more precisely, price controls on interchange fees.  Interchange fees are the fees banks charge retailers for processing the use of debit cards.  The interchange fee used to be about 1.35% of the amount purchased at the retailer.  This enabled banks to cover the costs of debit cards and offer other perks such as ‘‘free’’ checking.

Because the price of the interchange fee may soon be set at .03-.06 cents per transaction, banks have to figure out another way to cover their costs.  Say welcome back to fees for checking.

Posted by: Old Grouch in In Passing at 17:32:15 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Delaware state officials have told Congress that they likely destroyed the computer records that would show when and how often they accessed Christine O’Donnell’s personal [federal] tax records.

Posted by: Old Grouch in In Passing at 17:00:55 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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House Speaker John Boehner says Congress ‘‘should not be judged on how many new laws we create’’ but on ‘‘how many laws ... we repeal.’’

Posted by: Old Grouch in In Passing at 15:24:43 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Graham suggests US boycott Winter Olympics in Russia over Snowden

Posted by: Old Grouch in In Passing at 15:27:34 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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We have been abused by everybody, the entire establishment, and now they are shocked and stunned that we are getting over 25 per cent of the vote everywhere we stand across the country. - Nigel Farage, leader, UK Independence Party

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 30% of Likely Republican Voters believe Republicans in Congress have done a good job representing their party’s values over the past several years.  Sixty-three percent (63%) of GOP voters think congressional Republicans have lost touch with the party’s base..

[Mitt] Romney lost because he did not appeal to the millions of Americans who have seen their standard of living decline over the past decades...  When Romney did not address their concerns, they either voted for Obama or didn’t vote at all. - Byron York

Twenty-nine percent of [U.S.] registered voters think that an armed revolution might be necessary in the next few years in order to protect liberties, according to a Public Mind poll by Fairleigh Dickinson University. - CNS News

Posted by: Old Grouch in In Passing at 21:18:23 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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